


Cranberry sauce and other disasters

by Anti_kate



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Fires, apparently I am bad at fluff, brief mention of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21682726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate
Summary: Aziraphale tries to cook, Crowley has a panic attack, this is my idea of fluff.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138





	Cranberry sauce and other disasters

**Author's Note:**

> Brief mentions of the bookshop burning and sex in this one, but it’s still extraordinarily tame.
> 
> Written for the prompts “cranberry” and “fire” for Drawlight’s 31 days of Ineffables challenge.

Crowley woke to the smell of smoke.

He sat upright in the bed, his brain still catching up with his body, and he could smell it and see it, a fine haze in the mid-morning air.

He lunged to his feet and was running down the stairs to the kitchen in an instant, his useless, pointless heart thudding in his chest - _no no no not another fire_ \- throwing open the door to find Aziraphale amidst utter chaos, with smoke thick in the air, but no actual conflagration. There were pots and pans everywhere, and what looked like blood -but probably wasn’t - splattered all over the hob, and it smelled awful.

“Angel,” Crowley hissed, the panic still running through him like wire in his veins, “What the actual fuck?”

Aziraphale - dressed in a bright pink apron that said ‘World’s Okayest Cook’ - was jabbing helplessly with a wooden spoon at a smoking pot.

“Ah,” he began, but Crowley didn’t give him time to reply before he took the pot and pulled it off the gas, and turned off the glowing hot plate.

“When it starts burning like that, you stop,” Crowley snarled, and then turned and put his arms around Aziraphale, and buried his face in his neck. He shut his eyes and tried to breathe in his smell over the acrid scent of burning.

“I know, I know, I just... panicked. I think I had the heat too high,” Aziraphale said in his ear, winding his arms around Crowley’s shoulders. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

_Calm down_ , he told himself, but his body decided at that moment to shudder with the adrenaline and horror of it, his mind ever so helpfully running back to the bookshop, and the fire, and the bookshop was on fire, it was always on fire, he only had to close his eyes and he could see it, and Aziraphale was gone, always gone, and that was too easy to see too. Even with his arms around him, it was too easy for there to be an Aziraphale-shaped hole in the universe.

“Oh my dear, you’re shaking,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley tried to come back to the present. Aziraphale was fine, the bookshop was fine, the world hadn’t ended, he’d just burned something.

“The smoke. The smell,” Crowley hissed into Aziraphale’s neck. “Don’t like it. Reminds me of... you know. When the bookshop burned down.”

Aziraphale went still, and Crowley immediately regretted it. This was the thing about living together, about being together, all the bloody time. It was wonderful, and the sex was amazing, but it was also ... tricky. Where once he could have retreated into a decades long nap whenever things were difficult or unpleasant, now he had to be awake, and present, and work through emotional things, because they were a they. They were an Us, and while he’d had a long time to think about that in theory, (mainly focusing on the theory of making the angel utter terrible blasphemies through the application of Crowley’s flexible tongue) what that meant in practice was talking about things, and respecting personal space, and also being mindful of the other person-shaped-being’s feelings.

“I’m sorry-” Crowley said, wincing at his own tone.

“No! Don’t you dare. I’m the one who should be sorry. I _am_ sorry. I was trying to make cranberry sauce to take to Madame Tracy’s Christmas soirée,” Aziraphale said, managing to be the only person in the world who used the word soirée unironically, which made Crowley laugh.

“I’m putting soirée on the banned words list, angel. It’s lunch, not a bloody masquerade ball.”

“Yes dear,” Aziraphale said in his ear. “You know, I even chose a recipe that the people on the computer assured me was easy.”

“Why couldn’t you just go to Waitrose and buy a jar like a normal person?” Crowley said, forcing his hands to unclench from where they’d fisted in Aziraphale’s porridge-coloured jumper. It was probably a good thing Aziraphale didn’t need to breathe, or he might have accidentally strangled him a dozen times since the world hadn’t ended almost eight months ago.

Aziraphale was looking at him with such fondness he was almost glowing, and also a hint of concern, and something else there, too. Guilt, Crowley thought.

“I am sor-” the angel said again, and Crowley was forced to kiss him to make the apologising stop. He’d meant it to be a gentle kiss but instead he found himself crowding Aziraphale up against the counter, pressing himself against him, the way he’d wanted to do for so long, and now he could. He could, and nothing was on fire, and Aziraphale was right here.

“No more cooking,” Crowley finally growled.

“Quite right, my dear,” Aziraphale said, his voice pleasantly breathless. “I was thinking of trying knitting instead.”


End file.
